“It makes everything focus on football right now,” left guard Ramon Foster said, “which is A-OK with me.”

Free safety Ryan Clark agreed.

“Nobody is really tripping about it,” the 12th-year veteran said. “We understand the spirit in which it’s done in, and we’re just playing football.”

After the 0-2 start Clark, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and defensive end Brett Kiesel banned the games from the younger players. At first, Tomlin agreed, but since the team is still winless he decided the entire team needs to be treated the same.

“It divided the team in a way since one set of people couldn’t do a certain thing,” said Clark, one the Steelers’ captains. “[Tomlin] just wanted everybody to be together because we’re all in the losses together. We’re all in the business of fixing this problem together, and we didn’t want anything to divide us.”